The Southend Airshow first ran on 26th May 1986 as the finale of the Southend Spring Festival and is the largest free airshow to take place in Europe.

Southend Airshow has attracted many aircraft and display teams in the past including; The Concorde, The Red Arrows, Frecce Tricolori, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, RAF Falcons, the Sally B Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, A10 Thunderbolt, Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, Avro Shackleton, Hawker Sideley Harrier, Vulcan, F117a, Vickers Viscount, Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, the Saab Draken and a Catalina flying boat.

Naturally the airshow is a highly popular annual fixture for Southend-On-Sea and in the nearly three decades since it launched it has drawn millions of attendees from all over the United Kingdom and Europe.

However, in 2013 Southend Borough Council announced its intention to cancel the event citing budget cuts and lack of sponsorship.

In response to this announcement a campaign to ‘save the airshow’ and raise awareness of the Council’s impending vote was formed. What followed was a whirlwind of social media, newspapers and radio interviews including: BBC Online, BBC Essex, Radio Southend, Heart Essex, GatewayFM, Evening Echo, Southend Standard and the Yellow Advertiser. Sadly in spite of the effort and the largest demonstration ever seen at the Civic Centre, the Council chose to cancel the event.

DICKHEADS!!!!!

Been going through my PC and I have some slideshows and videos, uploaded to YouTube, from the 2009 & 2011 airshows.

Today's slideshow is from 2011 and features the Hawk, Tornado, Vampire, and Vulcan.

Enjoy.